The influence of personality factors, school achievement goals, academic efficacy, and stressload of serious problems on final grades was studied by giving a questionnaire, The Perceived Stress and Control Assessment Scale, to 915 Swedish high school students. A new measure, Stressload Index, was created by extending the Control-Stress Index. Structural Equation Modeling analysis revealed that the variance in final grades was explained by four predictors, namely academic efficacy, stressload of serious problems, neuroticism, and extraversion, to 13%, academic efficacy contributing most. The effect of stressload of serious problems was shown to be negative. The influence of extraversion was negative, whereas neuroticism had a positive effect on final grades.

For health psychologists, cooperation with other professions is an important part of interdisciplinary work. Such efforts are not without challenge, due at least in part to different scienti c approaches characterizing various disciplines involved in the health domain. On the other hand, interdisciplinary cooperation is rich in opportunities for all parties, not least the patients and clients who may have much to gain from such efforts. To elucidate the topic with respect to Health Psychology in the countries represented in the EHPS, questions speci cally concerned with cooperation with other professions were included in the questionnaire administered to the EHPS National Delegates (NDs) (see Plass et al., this issue). In this contribution, the cooperation of Health Psychologists with other elds of psychology and with other professions are discussed on the basis of the results the questionnaire study. The article also considers examples from Sweden and Switzerland.

The role of surgery is controversial in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) spread to ipsilateral mediastinal or hilar lymph nodes. In this study we wanted to find out whether the location of lymph nodes positive for NSCLC in the mediastinum or hilum plays a role in the survival of these patients. We reviewed retrospectively our 881 patients operated on for NSCLC between 2004 and 2014. Patients having unforeseen spread of cancer to mediastinal (N2) or hilar (station 10) lymph nodes in the final pathology report were further analyzed according to Naruke classification. The mediastinal N2 group was thereafter subdivided into upper (stations 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and lower mediastinal groups (stations 7, 8, 9). Clinical staging included computed tomography (100%), positron emission tomography (47.6%), and mediastinoscopy (9.8%). Median follow-up after surgery was 54 months. Between January 2004 and December 2014 there were 108 pN2 patients and 35 patients with hilar pN1 (station 10 node) involvement. The 5-year overall survival (OS) of the whole group was 19.6%. Better OS was found in patients with nodes positive for upper mediastinal nodes compared to those with lower positive mediastinal nodes or multilevel N2 patients (p=0.027 and p=0.003, respectively). The OS of patients with positive hilar (station 10) nodes did not differ from that of the upper mediastinal positive N2 subgroup. OS of patients with multilevel N2 was significantly worse than the other groups lumped together (p=0.016). Progression free survival (PFS) patients with hilar and upper mediastinal positive nodes had a better outcome compared to multilevel N2 patients (p=0.014 and 0.003, respectively). No significant difference was noted between patients positive for lower positive mediastinal nodes and patients with multilevel N2. Also, PFS multilevel N2 patients had a significantly worse outcome compared to all other groups combined (p=0.004). Based on our results, lower positive mediastinal N2 node patients seem to have as unfavorable OS and PFS as multilevel N2 disease patients, and significantly worse prognosis than upper mediastinal node patients. Both OS and PFS of patients with positive hilar disease is similar to the upper mediastinal positive N2 group. We conclude that the location of lymph nodes positive for cancer is a significant factor in the prognosis of NSCLC.

Hydrogels of flax and hardwood pulp powders were prepared by regeneration from solutions in N,Ndimethylacetamide—LiCl. Silver (Ag) nanoparticles were intercalated into the pulp hydrogel matrices by reducing a solution of AgNO3 using trisodium citrate. The resulting samples were studied by wide-angle x-ray scattering, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The antimicrobial activity was determined against Staphylococcus aureus-16 and Escherichia coli. It was found that the hydrogels exhibited antimicrobial activity even with a low concentration of Ag nanoparticles.

The effects of extract of apple peel, 'Aroma', organically cultivated or cultivated according to integrated production, on cell proliferation in vitro of colon cancer HT29 cells and breast cancer MCF-7 cells, were investigated. Different sequences of solvents were used, and the inhibiting effect on cancer cell proliferation of the different extracts was investigated. The solvents used were ethanol, methanol, DMSO and hexane in different sequences. The extracts decreased the proliferation of both HT29 and MCF-7 cells, the effect was different for the different extracts, and ethanol showed the highest inhibition effect. The inhibiting effect of the extracts also varied between both apple production methods, and extracts from peels of organically produced apples showed in some cases higher inhibition effects, while sometimes no differences were found. In addition, as ursolic acid, a component of apple peel, has been proposed to inhibit cancer cell proliferation, the inhibiting effect of pure ursolic acid on cancer cell proliferation was compared with the effect of the apple peel solvent fraction with the highest ursolic acid concentration. The inhibiting effect was higher in the apple fraction extract than in pure ursolic acid. Further, a range of different apple cultivars, integrated production and organically cultivated, were analysed by HPLC for their content of ursolic acid to investigate possible differences in concentrations.

S357frequently reported as bothersome; however, women who completed the survey expressed high levels of satisfaction with their lives and relationships demonstrating a resilient ability to cope with their disease.

Objective: To elicit psychological and psychosocial problems existing in patients in dialysis and their partners, its being felt that the diversity involved has important implications for how service in dialysis units is delivered to patients and their partners.Methods: The results of a series of interviews of 39 patients in dialysis and 21 partners of theirs, each interview individual, concerning their ways of thinking and their feelings and the behaviour, were analyzed in qualitative and content-oriented terms.Results: Five basic themes could be identified: importance of treatment being individualized, dependency on an apparatus, consequences of the disease and its treatment, hopes for the future, and thoughts concerning life and death. Diversities relating to age, civil status, cultural and gender matters were disclosed.Conclusion: The interview approach illustrated the importance of extended professional and individualized support in handling psychological and psychosocial disparities and needs in order to make treatment regimes more acceptable to the persons involved.Practice implications: Suggestions are made concerning efforts to improve the care of patients receiving dialysis, and the importance of working with the patients and those closest to them in multidisciplinary teams. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

We report an outbreak of Shigella dysenteriae type 2 infections during May-June 2009 in Sweden, involving 47 suspected cases of whom 35 were laboratory-confirmed. The epidemiological investigation based on interviews with the patients pointed at sugar snaps from Kenya as the source. Shigella was not detected in samples of sugar snaps. However, Escherichia coli was confirmed in three of four samples indicating contamination by faecal material. During April to May 2009 outbreaks with Shigella connected to sugar snaps from Kenya were reported from Norway and Denmark. In the three countries trace back of the indicated sugar snaps revealed a complex system with several involved import companies and distributers. In Sweden one wholesale company was identified and connections were seen to the Danish trace back. These three outbreaks question whether the existing international certification and quality standards that are in place to prevent products from contamination by faecal pathogens are strict enough.